Surcease…

Sunlight wrapped in medicinal form.
Rotating glories of rest and relief seem to
Simply ooze out if its sides.
This tablet of mercy and kindness
Happily paid for with mere money.

I used to believe that one could
Only find personal contentment with other people.
How naive I was.
That was before.
That was yesteryear.

Now I know better.

Now that my heart is broken daily
And my soul shrivels inside me from lack of care.
Relentlessly beat upon and abused
By a careless enemy of my self.

I used to think of myself as the Rambo type.
Strong. Smart. Able to take on anything that came my way.
And for years I was right.
But that was before.

Before the pain.
The shame. The helplessness.
The embarrassment of finding the edges of myself,
And not being able to take looking over the side.

I have traded the glory days of my life,
For a convoluted mass of ritual and time.
Every day blended into merely time from or to
My next dose of Hospital level Narcotics.

So I slam the hard little gems of peace and relief
Down my throat and wait for their sweet breath
To weave its life-saving vapor through my veins.
Waiting, ever waiting, for the moment of release……

It comes in a rush.
Like almost too hot water running down my head and back,
It flows down my sides and finally onto that
Bleeding raw wound that is the center of my existence.

I lay back and close my eyes,
Feeling the loosening of ever-tight muscles and nerves.
Blessed nirvana for a few moments.
A few minutes. A few hours.
A brief lessening of the maddening hell that is mine.